Everything an amateur bowyer does to turn a log into a bow throughout the year.
Making bows, longbows and primitive bows with all the tips, tricks and problems.

Wednesday, 12 August 2015

Odds and Ends

On an apple hunting expedition I came across some lovely Blackberries down between the railway line and the river Stort in a nature reserve. It's a real sun trap and the blackberries were ahead of the ones nearer where I live.
I boiled them up for a few minutes with some sugar, and they went really well with some Gooseberry fool that my wife had made.
I'd been talking about Gooseberry fool at work and Lea, one of the "girls" who I've know for years and years asked if I'd bring in a little one for her! I took in a little ramekin of fool and a few blackberries to go on top.
I'm only working mornings now which a great enhancement to the work life balance. Lea dropped by after work to return the pots, so I showed her my wine and apple stash. She'd seem my bows, but never tried one, so she had a go.
She was sticking them in the boss nicely, which is more than some target archers who aren't used to short range can manage! She enjoyed having a go, and was impressed by how far they were sticking into the boss. Initially she expected to shoot from about 2 yards and thought she wouldn't hit the target from the full 10 yards from outside the garage.
It's always fun to show off the bows, but, in the bright sunlight I noticed some tiny hairline chrysals on the belly of the Mollegabet, I could tell they were chrysals as I could just feen 'em with my fingernail.
Normally I'd be upset by any sign of chrysals, but this didn't worry me as they were evenly spread which shows an even tiller, and it was always an experimental bow. It also shows I was pushing it to the limit.
The fact that it's effectively shot out gives me carte blanche to experiment further, maybe splicing on some lever extensions to increase the draw length. Even if it goes puddingy now, it's done a good job of flinging a few arrows a long way.

I've made a start on the cider too, got the first 5 litres nearly done.
I've got about 4 litres and the dry cake of pressed apple has been put in a fermenting bucket with a litre of water to soak out some additional juice over night. I'll give that a second pressing tomorrow to top up the demijohn.